SEKTION – What I Learned about IKEA’s New Kitchen Cabinet Line

Amidst a veil of secrecy IKEA unveiled their new line of kitchen cabinets today – called SEKTION — with little fanfare, at least not at my local store, Ikea of South Philadelphia. By secrecy I mean the fact that IKEA would not release any information about the cabinets prior to today’s launch. Not a big deal, you say? Well it is if you wanted to go in there today and buy a new kitchen. Without the dimensions or specifics no one was able to plan ahead, so I can’t imagine too many people were buying a kitchen today. Frankly, the staff at my IKEA didn’t look like they had nearly enough time to pull of the switch from AKURUM to SEKTION (don’t even get me started on them having to memorize a whole new list of funny-sounding names) because there were unfinished displays, cardboard boxes lying around, and duplicates where they were not meant to be.

I was totally wrong with my prediction last August that the new IKEA kitchen line would be called METOD, which replaced AKURUM elsewhere around the world. Check out the IKEA websites in these countries. The American version is called SEKTION, which is a name I actually like. The name SEKTION no doubt makes reference to the fact that IKEA’s new kitchen line is more modular, or made of sections, in nature. Or perhaps it is referencing the snazzy new drawer dividers now available. I am particularly fond of the bamboo drawer organizer.

Ikea is most certainly using components from the METOD line, just changing the name, my guess is the main difference being inches versus centimeters. Maybe they didn’t use the METOD name because it’s too similar to the popular METHOD line of hand soap and cleaners. Who knows? Just note there is one piece in the new SEKTION line named METOD – – it is the METOD Ventilation Grill. I don’t remember the old AKURUM line even offering a grill, but I think this is an excellent addition as many kitchen remodels require the movement of wall and floor registers. Often these are redirected to run under the kitchen cabinets, terminating in the toe kick. The METOD vent grill should fit the IKEA toe kicks perfectly. Speaking of toe kicks, let’s move on to some of the differences between the old AKURUM kitchen cabinets and the new SEKTION cabinets.

What’s the Difference between SEKTION and AKURUM?

Toe Kicks are Now Plastic

The SEKTION toe kicks (plinth) are made of reinforced polypropylene, which is definitely an improvement over particleboard when it comes to kitchens. It is not surprising that there were moisture issues with the old particle board toe kicks. Um… it’s a kitchen. There’s moisture. The plastic ones should not have the same issues with warping. When looking at the built models, I thought the new toe kicks were better looking in appearance.

Upper Cabinets are Deeper

In SEKTION, the upper cabinets are 15”. Every last one of them. I hope you didn’t want 12” cabinets on your walls, because that ain’t going to happen with SEKTION. Personally, I like the added depth, but an option would be nice. Take for instance the half wall I knocked down in my kitchen – I replaced the wall with 12” AKURUM cabinets – I’m sure glad I did it while I had the chance because I would not have wanted any extra depth there. But it most instances of using upper cabinets as base cabinets, I think the 15” would be warmly received, especially because SEKTION has 15” deep drawers! Kitchen islands will greatly benefit from the new 15” depth.

New Interior Colors

I was never a fan of the gray drawer interiors of AKURUM, so I am delighted that the new drawer interiors are white! All white. Even white coated metal. What I don’t like is the new cabinet boxes. They kept the white option, of course, but did away with the birch cabinet boxes in favor of dark brown. It’s terrible. It clashes with the doors and looks very busy with the other white interiors.

SEKTION is Built on a Modular Design

Oddly, SEKTION offers more cabinet sizes, more choices in width and height. (NOT depth!) There used to be only two heights for wall cabinets, 30” or 36”. Now there are 15”, 20″, 30″ and 40″.

The 15” high cabinets, which are cubes, look especially nice hanging from the wall buffet-style.

Loads of Drawer Options

Tons! With the SEKTION you can now have a drawer inside a drawer. Or two drawers inside a drawer, which means that behind one drawer front you will have 3 drawers (the drawer attached to the drawer front, and two additional drawers tucked behind the drawer front). The new door hinge design, of all things, plays an important role in the new drawer interiors. The new hinge is only screwed into one row of holes on the inside of the cabinet box, while the old AKURUM hinges took up two rows of holes. The new streamlined hinge allows for more space and more configurations for drawer slides.

How does this work? The drawers and slides are exactly the same depth on both versions, the only difference is that the sliders are set back one hole on the interior of the cabinet. The interior UTRUSTA drawer faces are all white (which I think looks ridiculous with the dark wood interior) and are available in 8.5”, 4”, or 6.5” heights. To confuse you a little, there are two types of drawer glides: MAXIMERA is what you’re used to from IKEA drawers, full extension and soft close, and is the more expensive model. If you want to go basic, get the FORAVAR glides, which open ¾ of their depth and don’t have a soft close.

SEKTION also offers more drawer face sizes. You can now have drawers as small as 5″ high and 36″ wide.

You can even add drawers to wall cabinets, why you’d want to I have no idea, but IKEA must think it’s a hot new trend.

I really liked the interior drawer lights. They are something I would consider installing in my new kitchen. Very dramatic effect.

New Legs

The basic, hidden behind the toe kick, legs look pretty much the same as their old counterparts, but the attachment method is now different. In the medal variety, there is now a white color option as well as the original aluminum. SEKTION has new 15” legs, in either wood, stainless steel or white powder-coated steel (LIMHAMN, $59/2pk). The stainless steel ones are pretty hot! They add that furniture look to the SEKTION cabinets.

Creative Use of Sink Cabinets

The standard sink cabinet in AKURUM had a false drawer at the top and two shorter doors underneath. You always had the option of forgoing the false drawer and adding two full height doors, but only if you were smart enough to think of it on your own. On the contrary, every SEKTION display kitchen had an interesting use of a sink cabinet. I was impressed. They even had 36” wide single panels disguised as two drawers. Clever. Not sure how long that door will hold up, but at least you can get a replacement. (Sorry AKURUM owners)

More Options for Your Garbage

The AKURUM line completely neglected the trash can thing. Yes, you could jerry rig a solution by adding a full height door to a drawer front placed at the bottom of a cabinet, but it was most certainly an afterthought. Not so with SEKTION. I saw several different solutions for stowing trash cans out of site. IKEA now makes an American sized trash can. Yay. You have to pay the ridiculous price of ??? for a lid, but hey it’s a start. The display kitchens showed several configurations, some under the sink, others adjacent to the sink. You can even fit 4 Euro-sized garbage cans (VARIERA, $5.99 + $2.99 for lid) behind one door.

More Options for Corner Cabinets

The SEKTION corner base cabinets are pretty much the same as the old AKURUM models, except the carousels are now white, which I definitely approve of. While the carousels move easily up and down, they cannot easily be removed from the cabinet, something I inquired about mainly because I know the ones I currently have in my non-IKEA kitchen get disgusting. Each carousel does come with a laser cut mat that can be removed for easy cleaning. Think car mats. Except these are clear. The configuration of the base cabinets is the same though, either have the typical bi-fold door style with carousel (SEKTION/RINGHULT, $379) or the single door model with a blind end on one side and an oblong pull-out fitting that swings outside of the cabinet frame.

What’s different is that the upper corner cabinets (which I have no interest in personally) are now available in different heights and you can now get glass doors for the corner cabinets. I never thought about it, but the doors on the corner cabinets do not fit any of the normal 12, 15, or 18” sizes. Who knew? The glass carousel (UTRUSTA, $69) for the upper cabinet is also very attractive. (Not attractive enough to make me want an upper corner cabinet, but pretty none the less.)

Appliances

The appliances got an overhaul as well, but I didn’t pay as much attention to them, as I don’t plan on buying IKEA appliances for my new kitchen. Although… I might give the integrated microwave a shot. They are hard to come by at the big box stores and there aren’t many options elsewhere. Rest assured the appliances are not made by IKEA (what a relief), rather they are still made by Whirlpool. Amazingly they come with a 5-year warranty, which we all know cost a few hundred bucks at the big box stores. Installation is also FREE! All the refrigerators I saw today had NEW tags on them, and I was informed that IKEA added two French door models due to popular request. What I can’t for the life of me figure out is why they didn’t make the refrigerators counter depth. I mean, come on, you make the cabinets, so you have to know the dimensions, right?!

So What is Still the Same as AKURUM?

The door styles are pretty much identical in appearance, but remember, the names and dimensions have all changed. There is still a 25-year warranty. But I know what you really care about… yes the drawer slides and hinges are still made by Blum!

The SEKTION rails aren’t the same as the ones used with the AKURUM wall cabinets, but you’ll hardly notice the difference.

Do I Like the New SEKTION Cabinets?

Yes! And I’m very glad I waited for them to be released. (Read my kitchen post from September HERE) I feel so badly for anyone who bought an obsolete AKURUM in the past few months. Not only are there more configuration options with SEKTION, but who wants to own something you can’t get parts for or add on to anymore. Do I think SEKTION is perfect? Nope. I will probably still buy custom doors from Semi Handmade. We’ll see…

Thanks for reading! If you have first hand experience with the new SEKTION cabinets I’d love to hear about it! You can leave a comment here or visit me on one of these sites…

Reader Interactions

Comments

Thanks so much for this! My husband and I are planning to redo our kitchen this year- I was looking on the IKEA website a few weeks ago and saw that Akurum was being discontinued. We’re planning a trip down to check out the new goods, but this post is a great primer. Thanks again!

The off white color of the SEKTION cabinets actually looks white. I think a person wanting a white kitchen would not be off put by the shae. It’s not an ivory at all. I go between liking white and off white and this seems in the middle when you see it. They display it with white white quartz in the store with some grey mixed in and it looks really nice with the cabinets, showcasing the fact that the off white is not an ivory and actually looks good with white white countertops.

Awesome post! This was so helpful. I’m planning an IKEA kitchen for a client, and we intentionally waited until SEKTION was released so we could use it. But, we live nowhere near an IKEA, and there is 0 info on their website about how the cabinets fit together.

That stinks to be so far away from an IKEA when doing a big project. I was back and forth many times when I designed my mom’s kitchen, and I did all the designing online. There were lots of returns and re-ordering, plus not everything showed up on the truck the first time it was ordered. Good luck!

Nice to see the blog back. Not redoing kitchen anytime soon/ doing a major master bath/closets redo in next few weeks and excited to shop for sinks, tile, closet organization…. But this was an in deapth eval … I like the multi level and lighted kitchen drawers. Very cool. But wouldn’t use ikea if we were doing kitchen over.

I’ve been checking out the Metod system for a while now on Ikea Sweden and am disappointed that Sektion is missing some of the cabinets that Metod has – such as the broom closet that has a pullout for your vacuum. There are quite a few items that are missing if you compare. Do you know why this is? Is Ikea still going to be rolling out new items? Or did the US and Canada just get stuck with a slightly inferior system?

Thank you so much for this incredible write up. I’m so disappointed because I had finally finished my entire kitchen in Akurum and was excited to replace all the door/drawer fronts with a model I really loved. Now, I understand the new doors will not fit the old Akurum cabinets. Do you happen to know of a workaround to this predicament. I have no desire to replace all my old cabinets and internal hardware. Thanks so much!

Hi Janet, it is such a bummer that the two systems are not compatible. On the other hand, I’d say it doesn’t really matter because the new SEKTION doors are all the same styles as the old AKURUM doors. A not so cheap solution is to get custom doors. Semihandmade makes doors for both SEKTION and AKURUM. The shaker style doors (my favorite!) are 10% off until the end of the month! http://www.semihandmadedoors.com/ You will have to contact someone there because their prices are not defined on the website.

The cabinets might be the same style as the AKURUM cabinets, but don’t come in the same colours!!! We found this out after remodeling our kitchen in Sept 2015 ( to the AKURUM ) only to find out all things have changed! We only needed to add a 1′ base slider cabinet for recycling to fill a small space designed by error. Our style only comes in black now, so we have picked out a paint that we will apply after we sand. Since the old colour was a white cupboard with a hint of pink, with grey streaks. Not very easy to match – but what else were we to do?
I also wouldn’t like the dark interiors.
And for the record – I also don’t like that they didn’t warn us that they were changing things up. I wouldn’t have put off fixing our error to work on the rest of our remodeling if I knew this was what IKEA was doing.

Thanks Jim. I’m going with Barker Cabinets and they are completely customizable to .25″! It means the possibilities are endless! There were several times Ikea cabinets would not work for my design. The Barker Cabinets are 100% wood, made in America. I’m pretty excited about them. http://www.barkercabinets.com/

I have a custom cabinet maker coming today (completely demo-ed my kitchen last week and needed it completely empty to think) but I went to IKEA yesterday just to get inspired. This post REALLY gives me a lot of information, and I can’t imagine that the guy will be able to give me all of the drawer options I want. Thanks so much for this wonderful post. Fabulous.

Thanks Sarah! It’s been exactly one year since the new SEKTION line came out at IKEA, so your comment is very timely! IKEA is always great for inspiration! You should check out my facebook or Instagram to see the latest on my kitchen remodel. I went with Barker cabinets and I totally designed them to fit my needs. Drawer in drawer, lots of pullouts, drawers instead of full door pantry. I’m loving it so far. Good luck!!!

Thank you so much for this post! I bought akurum right when it got discontinued and I got a terrific deal for our rental. However I reconfigured it a twinge and now I have some gaps. My big question is if the new white for the sektion matches akurum? Or if the white for some of the free from wall cabinets that are not part of the sektion series will work. Any suggestions are welcome!

Hi, question about the UTRUSTA corner base cab pull out fitting. Do you know what size cabinet that needs to go into or what’s the smallest cabinet dimensions that could work with this pull out fitting? Thank you so much for your time. PS I put in a call and an email into IKEA and have yet to hear back from them.

Sorry Racquel I’m not sure about that. If I were you I would go measure and look for yourself because you never know if the person you get on the phone will actually know what they’re talking about. The corner cabinet situation was one of the reasons I could not go with IKEA. I just couldn’t make my kitchen design work with either of their two options. Good luck!

Thank you for putting together all of this information! I am working on updating my kitchen and Ikea is definitely tempting…. I think I might check out Barker Cabinets though! I love to support made in America! #1!

I am pleased with my Barker cabinets, but I have several warnings for you. Just as soon as I get the chance I will be writing several posts on the design, ordering, assembly processes. I definitely experienced some hiccups and there just isn’t a lot of information out there to lead you through the process, so hopefully my tutorials will be a big help. Check back in a few weeks… if you can wait that long. lol

Any idea if the utrusta wire baskets will fit in the akurum cabinets? I have measured inside both the sektion 18″ wide base cabinet and my existing akurum 18″ wide base cabinet and they measure the same – 16 1/2″. So in theory they should fit…however the IKEA sales person wasn’t very helpful when I asked them about this. I do know that the pre drilled holes are not in the same places on akurum as on sektion but I don’t mind having to drill extra holes to make it fit. Just looking for reassurance that it will work prior to buying!

Yes! They are made to fit cabinets that have an interior of 16.5″ I actually just installed 5 in my own custom made kitchen cabinets. I ordered an 18″ cabinet specifically for this purpose. This works on any european style 18″ cabinet because 18″ – 2(.75″ wood sides) = 16.5″. These will not fit an 18″ face frame cabinet, but IKEA only makes euro style (frameless) cabinets. Drilling the holes is not a big deal, so definitely go for it!

Polypropylene toe kicks: Am I correct to assume that miter cut corners are not possible with, say Grevsta to kicks? Can the same polypropylene material be used for base boards on wall adjacent to the cabinetry?

We installed a new IKEA kitchen in an affordable home that some architecture students designed. After installing three previous Akurum kitchens, we felt very good about the IKEA kitchens and qualified to install successfully. In keeping with the affordances of the new system we used more drawers than doors in the bottom cabinets. Unfortunately, IKEA has substantially changed the brackets that connect the drawer fronts to the drawer. The new two part plastic connectors are a disaster. They are easy enough to install but the instructions require that they be installed slightly differently depending on the location of the drawer (top, middle or bottom) and this is beyond the scope of the pictogram instructions to convey clearly. Once we figured this out and installed the drawers we realized that the easy adjustments previously offered by the Akurum brackets are no more. One could easily adjust the drawer fronts in two directions by adjusting screws in the old system. the new system has a primitive elongated hole that you can mess around with but the problem is that the particle board drawer fronts quickly strip out if you are not careful. Drawer adjustments are critical for initial installation but also to realign drawers over time as buildings tend to settle and mover a bit over time (our own IKEA drawers needed to be realigned after about 5 years) In addition any misalignments are magnified by the new larger sized drawer fronts. The kitchen looks a mess and we’ve been fussing with it for days. To be fair, I haven’t gone back to IKEA to complain in person and perhaps get some magic solution and I expect that IKEA will eventually fix this when they get enough complaints but we are really sorry to be the BETA testers for this crappy new hardware.

Oh man that sucks! I am experiencing similar angst with with my Barker Cabinets. Getting the drawer fronts to line up is a nightmare. I’ve ended up drilling my own holes because none of the top, middle, bottom options work. I’m sorry to hear this and will definitely include this info in any update posts I write. Thanks!

Thanks for such an Informative post. Actually, I am working on updating my kitchen and Ikea is definitely tempting. I have a custom cabinet maker coming today but I went to IKEA yesterday just to get inspired. This post surely gives me a lot of information, and I can’t conceive that the guy will be able to give me all of the drawer options for corner glass cabinet, I want. Thanks so much for this brilliant post.

Hi! I know this post is a year old and in looking at using the Ringhult cabinets door faces- ultra moder white gloss-as my clients looking for a modern update to her galley kitchen in NYC on a very tight budget!

Do you know if these cabinet door faces can be attached to their excistimg cabinets ( assuming the sizes of door faces work)?? So we can reuse the existing frames

Let me know as it would save a ton of money since they don’t want to gut the whole kitchen

Ikea’s official stance is NO, the new doors will not fit the old cabinet frames. But I have a hard time believing that this is true. The full overlay doors are measured to the outside of the frame and those measurements will be the same. 21″ wide is 21″ wide. I think you will be fine.

Hi SmartGirl,
I know this original post is over a year old but I am struggling with my Ikea base kitchen cabinets. Specifically, the ones with the drawers. BTW, this is not my first Ikea kitchen, but my first with the Sektion cabs. I have a set of 4 drawers with 3 fronts (stainless) on either side of my stove. The top drawers line up fine and the bottom one one (on both cabinets) is too high. The rail for the bottom drawer is as low as possible (second to bottom hole) but the drawer fronts are more than half an inch higher than they should be. It’s too much for the “adjustment” feature to handle. I reread instructions many times but can’t find a difference for assembling the bottome drawer that would take care of this. Any answers? Thank you!

Hi Smart girl
I’m going to be installing a Sextion kitchen for a customer and I am trying to find out the depth of there toe kick face from cabinet frame. The reason is I will be installing a toe kick heater before the cabinets are installed. Ikea site is one of the worst I have seen as far as any specs like this. I also spent two hours on the phone trying to find out this simple thing to no avail. Any help would be great. I’m not near a store or I would just run over there.

The Ikea cabinet boxes are truly just boxes. The legs are added separately and can therefore be installed at any depth you need them to be. The toe kick attaches to the cabinet legs. Standard depth is 2 3/4″ from the edge of the cabinet box or 3 1/2″ back from the door. Not sure if you found the link to the “buying guides” at the bottom of the Ikea site, but there is more useful info in there than on the website itself. http://www.ikea.com/ms/en_US/pdf/buying_guides_fy15/sektion/System-bg-SEKTION.pdf I hope this helps!

I just moved into a home with an Akurum kitchen. I would like to add additional pull-out Rationell 24″ Faktum wire drawers to a large empty base cabinet, the same as another cabinet has. I cannot find any of this discontinued item (500.359.07) online and IKEA says that the new Utrusta wire pull-out drawers, while they look identical, utilize the new Sektion line’s four interior holes rather than the Akurum’s three holes. Can I still use the new Utrustra wire pull-outs even if it means drilling in a few extra places? Or does anyone know where I can get the Rationell pull-outs?